Southern Africa’s elections – is there a ‘wave’ of change?

Much has changed in southern African politics in the past few months.

Our ANC now governs as part of a coalition. The party that governed Botswana for nearly 60 years has lost power. Mozambique is faced with violent protests against the liberation movement that is governing there, while Namibia’s governing party, Swapo, is facing its biggest threat since winning power in 1990.

Meanwhile, the two countries in the region which have not undergone major changes, and in which major change is unlikely, are both governed through oppression.

Eswatini is ruled by a despot who routinely spends money on luxuries for himself, while Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF uses violence to stay in power.

This gives considerable scope to examine whether these changes are related.

Of course, at one level, every country is very different to every other country. And that holds true here in southern Africa.

It cannot be said, without evidence, that what happens in Namibia or Botswana is linked to what happens in South Africa.

But it is also true that democratic politics can often move in waves. And events that happen in one place can have a huge impact on events in another.

For example, in 2016, the UK voted (narrowly) to leave the EU. In that same year, the US voted for Donald Trump to be president.

The two are not related. But at the same time, there was a wave of populism which seemed to flood many countries in Europe. The fact that the US and the UK share the same language and much of the same media may have played a role in promoting populism.

Social media was also surely a massive influence. And it may have felt to many at the time that one vote was linked to the other. To put it another way, that same era brought both Donald Trump and Boris Johnson to the top positions in those democracies in the same period.

But this year, those two countries have moved in opposite directions.

The US voted for Trump for a second term, while the UK voted for the complete opposite in Sir Keir Starmer.

This suggests while there can be “waves” of certain dynamics, countries do not stay joined at the hip for a long period.

Waves of change

In our recent history, there has been what some historians called a “third wave” of democratisation after 1990. This affected many African countries.

The root cause of that was events many thousands of kilometres away.

It was probably the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War that created the conditions for democracy to take deeper root in Africa, and perhaps, for apartheid to end.

All of this suggests that trying to determine whether events in one country in southern Africa affect events in another country can be almost impossible.

That said, it must surely be more than a coincidence that South Africa and Botswana have seen their governing parties fall below 50% and that Namibia may follow suit – all in the same year.

This is particularly because while these countries are all different from one another (and have important diversity within them), there are also many similarities.

Similar conversations around our colonial and racist histories (both South Africa and Namibia were run by the same apartheid state; Botswana was a British protectorate for part of the same period that South Africa was a British colony) lead to similar debates.

And all face the same challenges of huge unemployment (particularly youth unemployment), and of trying to stimulate development.

This means that it would be rational to assume that there could be waves of change that might affect this group of countries in the same historical period.

It is not just that ideas flow between them, but that inspiration follows too. And what can work as a tactic against a governing party in one place can be copied, and might well work in another.

And, of course, events in one place send signals to people in other countries.

For example, the ANC’s decision to not fight to retain a majority, and its simple acceptance of the outcome might well have shown the Botswana Democratic Party that it was possible to give up power (also, crucially, in both Botswana and our elections, the results were decisive, which must be a factor).

Protesters in Mozambique might well have been inspired by the ANC in some ways, making them demand that the governing party there follow its example. Many of the protestors in Mozambique might also have been aware of events in Angola that suggest allowing a governing party to steal elections can then lead to a dictatorship.

But this influence works in many ways.

For example, the ANC’s decision to give up a large part of its power might also have encouraged Zanu-PF to tighten its grip. In other words, it could be a signal that no democratic activity can be allowed because that could lead to the end of its time in power.

Or, more democratically, Swapo in Namibia could see the writing on the wall and decide to govern in a way that will win them more votes.

Turning points

Of course, it is also true that individuals matter, and that people and groups have agency.

For example, it is almost universally accepted by those who watch our politics that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s narrow victory against former President Jacob Zuma in 2017 was a major turning point. A few votes the other way, and our recent history could have been very different.

But that would not mean the ANC would necessarily be in power with over 50% of the vote today. Rather there would have been a split in the party (the SACP had already resolved to decide after the 2017 ANC conference whether to leave the alliance; it would have presumably provided the vehicle for Ramaphosa to contest the Presidency against an ANC led by Zuma and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma).

This may suggest that our society was changing and would not accept Zuma’s rule. And it would not be changing in isolation; other countries in our region would be changing with us.

It will always be impossible to know how events in one country influence another. Except to say that it is likely that they do.

And that we are part of a much bigger southern African story. DM